Belfast Mela is marking its 20th anniversary with a nine-day festival of music, dance, arts and food from multiple cultures, after growing from a gathering that once attracted 500 people into one of Northern Ireland’s largest arts festivals.
A Festival That Outgrew the Old Lines
The numbers tell the story before the speeches do. What began as a small event that founder Nisha Tandon thought might last only two or three years has become a fixture that now fills a city with performers, audiences and street colour for nine days. Belfast Mela, built through ArtsEkta on the principles of inclusivity, creativity and openness, has expanded far beyond the modest scale of its early years. Mela itself is a Sanskrit word meaning “to meet.”
That word does a lot of work. In a city long shaped by political sorting, the festival has created a space where people are not asked to stand in the old boxes first. Séamas Ó Labhradha said he first started helping out with Mela in the Ulster Hall, where people only popped in out of curiosity. He said that “each year it just blossomed more and got bigger,” and described Belfast as a “completely different world” that has become far more inclusive and diverse. He also recalled growing up in “a political Belfast where you were green or orange, where you only took part in your own culture's activities.”
That’s the old order speaking through habit. Mela has opened another route, at least for a few days each year.
What People Built Without the Usual Gatekeepers
The festival’s own participants describe it less like a polished civic brand and more like a living, messy, shared thing. Contemporary and Mexican folk dancer Mayte Segura said she was convinced to perform alongside her friend around 16 years ago and has been involved ever since. She said it is now “bigger, better and more vibrant.” She added: “I just love it. It's amazing to be together and I just love the costumes. I love all the cultures and the way that people do their own art.”
Segura said art plays a big role in meeting people positively and said she has faced no negativity while participating. “We share what we do with love, with respect, with an aim to integrate and communicate and we try to move people in that sense,” she said. She now dances at Mela with her own group, Mexican Dance Belfast. “We always have nice audiences at the Mela, and I hope if even one or two or three were inspired by us, that will be enough,” she added.
Caroyln Stewart said she was thrilled when she was asked to host Mela around 16 years ago. She grew up in north Belfast, “being one of very few people with brown skin,” and said: “I sort of look at Mela as you know, I wish it was there when I was a kid. Just to bring all types of people together.” She said the diversity, music and food “all just made sense,” and that seeing communities coming together and families being introduced to new cultures is what drives her to return to host every summer.
Luke McFarlane has been involved in Mela, circus and arts performances for 17 years. Now 25, he remembered his first time at the festival as huge, with food that was “fantastic.” He moved from volunteering to performing with the Chinese lion and dragon, and said the “huge celebration” is open to all people to celebrate their cultures. “The arts is very much a massive part of my life, even though I work full-time,” he said. “I try to dedicate myself to continue that, I think it's very important in our city.”
The City Takes the Parade Route
This year’s festival opens with the Mela Carnival on Saturday 22 August, with a colourful parade and more than 800 performers, musicians and dancers. It starts at 12:30 BST from Writers Square, continues down Royal Avenue and finishes at city hall. That route matters. It moves through the centre of the city, not around it, and turns the streets into a temporary commons for music, dance and food rather than the usual business of control and routine.
One of the highlights is a new outdoor production called Earth Child to mark Belfast Mela’s 20th anniversary. It takes place at the Titanic Slipways at 20:00 BST on Sunday 23 August and combines aerial theatre, original live music, global drumming, dance, fireworks and more. Events run throughout the week before Mela Day returns to Botanic Gardens on Sunday 30 August, with five stages, global street food, family activities and performances from around the world.
The festival’s growth is plain enough. So is the contrast it draws. In a city once split into narrow cultural lanes, Belfast Mela has become a place where people show up to watch, perform, eat, dance and, for a while, step outside the scripts handed down by politics and habit. The state doesn’t build that kind of meeting. People do.